We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zulma Y. Terrones a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Zulma Y. , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
The idea for Life Stages and its mission to address the $2.5T global mental health crisis through science, community, technology, and nature was born from both my personal mental health journey and my 13+ years of professional experience helping diverse global communities build fundamental wellness skills.
I was born in Mexico and raised in Chicago since the age of one, surrounded by Lake Michigan, city parks, and neighboring rural cornfields, within a Latinx family that neither recognized nor actively worked on mental health. My mental health was already suffering from childhood trauma and was only deteriorating further as I navigated early adulthood. After earning my undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago (AB ’12), I spent a couple of years working in sales and marketing at local startups, quickly realizing this wasn’t my calling which left me feeling unfulfilled and lost.
In 2014, I took a leap of faith. I quit my job, sold my belongings, and bought a one-way ticket to Europe, setting off on what was supposed to be a yearlong backpacking trip. My goal was to disconnect from the life I had built, giving myself the space to rediscover my passions and reevaluate how I wanted to contribute to the world. One year turned into nearly five, as I travelled and collaborated with organizations across Europe, Latin America, and Oceania, working with diverse populations across age, needs, lived experience, socio-economic class, culture, and more. Despite the unique circumstances of each person I encountered, I noticed one consistent theme: people found health benefits in nature, whether it was a simple mood shift or a significant improvement in their clinical functioning.
This experience sparked my desire to formally study the connection between nature and well-being, leading me to apply to the University of Cambridge master’s program in Psychology and Education with an emphasis in outdoor behavioral health. While there, I partnered with a local NGO to conduct a case study on outdoor therapeutic programming for adolescents with behavioral, developmental, and mental health challenges. During this time, I also deepened my own connection with nature by taking up rowing for my college, Wolfson.
After completing my degree (MPhil ‘18) and concluding the case-study research project, I returned to the U.S., driven to expand my skills working with clinical populations. In 2019, I landed in Portland, called to it by its natural landscapes and strong community-centred support systems, where I began working as a 24/5 community-based mental health crisis clinician. Over the next 2.5 years, I supported suicidal youth and families in crisis, helping them achieve clinical stability and build sustainable wellness practices. This period, which spanned the COVID-19 pandemic, underscored the world’s urgent need for personalized, scalable mental health solutions. This period also highlighted that this need would only grow exponentially as the world changed and new crises and ways of life emerged.
And, thus, the idea for Life Stages was born! I realized that I had the access, skills, and expertise in scientifically-backed techniques and research that promoted whole-body well-being and personal development. I envisioned Life Stages as a wellness company with an ecosystem of solutions that adapted to people’s various life stages and their unique wellness journeys. While there are many digital health solutions currently in existence, not many are taking a holistic approach to wellbeing, but rather silo off aspects of health (e.g., sleep, meditation, health metric tracking). Furthermore, digital health solutions continue to rely on static content libraries and/or minimally “personalized” approaches that do not adapt to real-life complexities, skill progression, or crucial sex-based differences that impact well-being. Life Stages would fill in this market gap and provide truly personalized, progressive, and adaptive solutions that are tailored to your lifestyle, wellness needs, skill progression, and vital sex-based differences to ensure sustainable wellness across the lifespan.
In 2021, I began my work to tackle the mental health crisis through an intersectional, nature- and science-based lens by conducting informal consumer research to understand consumer needs, market gaps, and the general consumer digital health landscape. In 2022, I participated in accelerators and mentorship programs, officially incorporated Life Stages, and laid the business model foundations. By 2023, we piloted paid proofs-of-concept, secured B2B partnerships, created three in-person community hubs across the West Coast, and started building our initial team. In 2024, we expanded our team further, built our MVP, and will begin testing it as a private beta with our B2B partners before a wider consumer launch in early 2025. We’ve been bootstrapping since the inception, but are excited to start fundraising from select investors to ensure we scale effectively and sustainably.
It’s been a long, intentional journey, but I’m excited to continue working toward adaptive, cost-effective, hyper-personalized wellness for all. I truly believe that, with the right tools and support, each of us can unlock our full potential and contribute uniquely to the world. My vision is for Life Stages to be a critical global resource in that journey.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m an entrepreneur and interdisciplinary professional with expertise in mind-body wellness, behavior psychology, organizational management, and clinical mental health. My career has spanned over 13 years across the U.S., U.K., Oceania, and Latin America, where I’ve proudly worked with diverse communities to help them address unique wellness and personal development challenges. My journey began in rigorous academic environments, where I gained degrees from the University of Chicago (AB’12) and the University of Cambridge (PhM’18), and evolved through roles in non-governmental settings and startup ventures.
One of the main drivers of my work is bridging the gap between science and real-world wellness. I’ve developed and managed outdoor-, education-, and health-oriented organizations, wellness services, curricula, research initiatives, and interdisciplinary teams, all with a focus on creating sustainable, long-term impact. I thrive on leveraging existing communities, partnerships, and systems, while also continuously improving and forging new aligned partnerships, resources, and processes to support systems of positive long-term change and well-being.
As the founder of Life Stages, a health tech company revolutionizing the wellness industry by integrating mind-body health with nature and technology, my team and I deliver an ecosystem of solutions that promote personal growth and sustainable well-being through science-backed, hyper-personalized wellness tools. Our offerings include online and in-person community wellness events, B2B employee wellness services, and Align, a hyper-personalized wellness app guiding users in cultivating healthier, more aligned thought and behavior patterns for sustained well-being. What sets Life Stages apart from other wellness services is our holistic lens for wellness that is rooted in science and nature, as well as our commitment to female-centric health. We understand wellness and self-actualization is possible through physical, mental, and socio-emotional health combined with self-awareness and authenticity, yet that this journey is biologically, neurological, developmentally, and socially unique based on sex. We strive to design products and services to help folks tap into their power and build wellness practices that align with their specific needs and take into account their unique sex- and individual-differences.
Our wellness app, Align, is a prime example, as it doesn’t simply track health metrics or give overgeneralized wellness tips, like other competitors, but can rather tailor wellness interventions based on each user’s lifestyle, availability, and even critical sex-based differences. It’s not just another app; it’s an adaptive wellness guide that evolves with each person’s unique journey! While we’re still in our MVP stage, we’re excited to get closer and closer to this vision and to help lay the foundations for health and wellness artificial general intelligence (AGI).
We’re proud to be female-founder led and to serve first and foremost serve women as this is a highly underserved and undervalued population that uphold society—and this is not an exaggeration as women uphold >$10.4T of unpaid global social labor. As a team, Life Stages understands the nuances that women face when balancing their wellness and social-/self-expectations, which makes us honored and committed to serving our early adopters of professional women ages 35-65. These are women who are intentional about their time, networks, and wellness but have not found a reliable and fulfilling way to balance the demands of modern life with their own wellness and development goals. They are highly educated, capable, and hungry for solutions, yet, have no solutions made specifically for them and their needs— until now!
This is just the beginning for us! Our mission is to empower women through our female-centric wellness app, and over time, we aim to extend our offerings to other diverse communities, continually expanding our impact. Our in-person services are currently focused on the West Coast—particularly the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco, and Monterey Bay areas—but we’re working towards expanding nationally over the coming years.
Life Stages is dedicated to providing true personalized mind-body health throughout every stage of life, and are excited about the journey ahead to continue contributing to global well-being and mental health!
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Initial funding for Life Stages, and still to this day, has primarily come from bootstrapping combined with grants, pitch competitions, and entrepreneurial programs. When I launched Life Stages in 2022, I was working full-time and had a couple of side gigs, which allowed me to self-fund the business early on. I also participated in entrepreneurial programs that offered grants, such as the REI x Founded Outdoors Embark program for BIPOC outdoor entrepreneurs and the Wild Gift Fellowship for socially- and environmentally-conscious founders. These programs not only provided financial support but also gave me valuable insight into the startup ecosystem, best practices for scalable businesses, and community-building with mentors, clients, partners, and others who are now friends, colleagues, and advisors.
Since transitioning to working on Life Stages full-time in the spring of 2023, I’ve participated in pitch competitions, such as Latino Pitch and Startup Challenge Monterey Bay, which offered both prize money and crucial networking and press opportunities. Currently, I continue to bootstrap the business primarily through B2B wellness services while we iterate on our app before its public launch. We’re now entering an exciting phase as we begin actively fundraising for our first round of pre-seed investor funding.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
Several books and podcasts have had a big impact on my entrepreneurial journey and management style—each offering valuable lessons that continue to shape how I approach leadership, problem-solving, and relationship-building. I’ve also included some shows that give insight to the startup world, even if in a dramatized fashion, but that I have found entertaining and inspiring/insightful in one way or another.
Books:
The Power of Moments by Chip Health and Dan Heath: This book dives into how pivotal moments shape our experiences. A great read underscoring the importance of creating lasting, meaningful experiences that inspire loyalty and positive change, whether in business or personally.
Mindset by Carol Dweck: Dweck is a pioneer and expert in the psychology of mindset— and an absolute inspiration to me! Her work encourages resilience, adaptability, and continuous learning, which are all critical in both personal development and entrepreneurial success. Knowing how to not be hindered by obstacles or unknown factors, but rather leaning into the uncomfortableness to learn a critical takeaway or gain a new perspective is crucial as a founder— and as a human!
Atomic Habits by James Clear: Clear’s book offers actionable strategies for building habits that lead to incremental but noticeable improvements over time. I’ve always been a fan of productivity and maximizing, or optimizing, your time, so this practical approach to building consistency through small actions that yield wide results really resonated.
The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha: This book has been invaluable for navigating the complexities of entrepreneurship. It emphasizes networking, assessing, and reiterating on your own self as key components to success in a constantly changing landscape. I really appreciate that it takes the lean startup way of scaling as a model for life “scaling,” agility, and continual self-evolution.
The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle: This read provides great insights into how to build and maintain a positive, high-functioning team culture. It highlights the importance of psychological safety, vulnerability, and shared purpose—values I emphasize in the workplace and in my personal life to ensure strong, connected, and resilient teams and connections.
Podcasts:
The Journal: Podcast about money, business, and power, offering timely insights into different industries and current events.
Life Kit: Covering a wide range of wellness and life skills, their style and approach aligns well with my own work methodologies in the health and wellness space, so a big fan of their practical approach!
Think Fast, Talk Smart: Communication Techniques: Communication is at the heart of effective management and general rapport-building, and this podcast provides great insights and deep dives into some effective tools and techniques.
Shows:
Shark Tank: It’s a fun, easy watch that can also provide invaluable insights into pitching, negotiation, entrepreneurship, and business strategy.
The Dropout: I’ve been fascinated by the story of Elizabeth Holmes– the sheer impressive scale of her vision, fundraising scale, and ultimate potential impact, while also not delivering and deceiving is wild! There’s a lot there to unpack in that case! This show, and podcast, were fun ways to look at what not to do as a founder building a business designed to care for the health and well-being of others.
I’d recommend a mix of any and/or all of these if you’re interested in the entrepreneurial journey or generally appreciate learning!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lifestages.us/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifestages.us/
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/lifestages.us
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zulmayt/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lifestages
- Other: https://zyterrones.info/
https://getaligned.lifestages.us
Image Credits
Einstein Photography BGS
Everardo GF Photo